


Lines of Lightning

by slightly_ajar



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Found Family, S04E04 Windmill + Acetone + Celluloid + Firing Pin, Team as Family, spy siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-23 01:03:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23003281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slightly_ajar/pseuds/slightly_ajar
Summary: A coda to the episode Windmill + Acetone + Celluloid + Firing Pin. The team travel home from Germany, Riley and Mac talk about the Phoenix, friendship and lightning.They were on the Phoenix jet going home, dirty and tired but with bodies that had remained in one piece and were blessedly free of shrapnel and burns.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 38





	Lines of Lightning

_These lines of lightning mean we're never alone. – Accidentally in Love, Counting Crows_

“Is it true that lightning never strikes the same place twice?” Riley put her six of diamonds down between her and Mac. They were half-heartedly paying cards together, too tired to be competitive but too fidgety to sit and do nothing. 

“Why are you asking me?” Mac said. 

Riley sent Mac a look full of the derision that question deserved. They were on the Phoenix jet going home, dirty and tired but with bodies that had remained in one piece and were blessedly free of shrapnel and burns. Desi was asleep on the couch, an exhausted sprawl of dust streaked limbs under the blanket that Mac had spread over her. There was a haunted weight to the fatigue around her eyes that Riley had seen but decided not to ask about. Not yet. Maybe she would after they’d all showered, eaten, and counted their bruises then their blessings. Sometimes it took a day or two of distance from a mission to remember that the quantity of the latter outnumbered the amount of the former. 

Mac tapped the card in his hands before placing it on the table. “Okay, I actually do know the answer to that.” 

“Wow, I’m shocked,” Riley said, deadpan, “this is my shocked face.” She showed Mac the flattest, dullest expression she could muster. 

“There’s no need for that level of sarcasm.” 

“There is every need for this level of sarcasm.” 

“I don’t know every science fact in the world.” 

“But you know most of the cool, destructive ones, right?” 

Mac scrunched up his nose and gave a high pitched hum, “Not every single one…”

“Uh huh,” Riley sing songed with a sassy snap to her head. She looked down at her next card, the ace of hearts. “So does it?” Riley persisted. “Lightning, does it ever strike the same place twice?” 

“Statistically it can, I mean it might not during one specific thunder storm but over the years there’s no reason why somewhere can’t be struck by lightning multiple times. Why do you ask?” 

“I was just thinking about us finding two unexploded bombs in the same place. What are the odds of that? If the fuses inside the bombs didn’t work ten percent of the time how likely was it that two bombs would fail to go off in the same location?” 

“It’s unlikely but it’s not impossible,” Mac quirked an eyebrow,” as we had fun finding out.” 

“It kind of means people in that area have been lucky but then really unlucky seventy five years apart.” Riley put her card down on the growing pile between her and Mac. “And, I don’t know, it got me thinking about lightning.” 

Mac sat back in his chair. “There was a park ranger called Roy Cleveland Sullivan who was struck by lightning seven times and survived each strike. He was really unlucky and also really lucky.” 

“Poor guy, but that’s also kind of awesome.” Mac looked at the card Riley had just put down and stared at it for a moment before putting his own, the nine of clubs, on top. They weren’t really playing a game anymore, neither of them could be bothered to put an effort into following any rules, but it felt companionable to take turns laying their cards down. 

“When we started up the Phoenix again I wasn’t sure if it would be the same.” Riley said. “We helped people before, we saved lives, we saved the world, and I didn’t know if we’d be able to do that again. We were like lightning in a bottle last time – you literally caught lightning in a bottle once – and I worried that maybe we couldn’t capture that again.” 

Riley had wanted it to work and for them to be the force for good they’d previously been but she’d worried that their moment had passed and they wouldn’t be able to get back what they’d once had. 

“What do you think now?” Mac asked. 

“We just saved a lot of people from an unexploded World War 2 bomb by pushing it out of a sixth story window. I think it’s safe to say that we’re back better than ever.” Riley smiled. 

Mac snorted. “Yeah, that could have ended differently.” 

“But it didn’t.” 

“No, no it didn’t.” 

“And we all got to go home.” Riley said. She cleared her throat and braced herself. “We are back aren’t we? Not just with the Phoenix but with us all being friends too? You do know I didn’t mean what I said about us just working together?” The connection they all had felt the same to her as it had before but time had passed, people change, and maybe it wasn’t the same for the others. Riley wanted them to be a family again but she knew that you didn’t always get what you wanted when it came to family. 

“I know. I hope we are - I think we are - back as friends I mean. We’re here doing this,” Mac gestured to the cards on the table, “and we’ve been for pizza and skee ball,” he smiled, “you don’t eat that much grease and play old school arcade games with someone you just work with do you?” 

“I didn’t with anyone from the computer store.” Riley said. “I did drink coffee from the same cup as my colleague Richie once but that was an accident.” 

“That sounds unfortunate.” 

“I try not to think about it.” Riley shuddered. 

Mac took a card out of the hand he was holding and tapped it against the table top, Riley could see that it was the two of spades and wondered if she could use that knowledge to her advantage somehow before remembering that she didn’t know what game they were playing. 

“When we weren’t in touch, when we first started losing touch, I thought about calling you and Bozer all the time but I felt like I had nothing to tell either of you.” Mac said, “There was nothing good, new or funny about my life to share so I felt like I had nothing to talk to you about. The thought of calling you got more and more difficult the more time that passed so I didn’t do it then eighteen months had gone by. I should have tried harder but I felt like if I had nothing to say to you then what was the point, an awkward silence would have been worse than not talking at all after how we used to be.” 

“I felt a little like that too.” Riley said, “I couldn’t tell you about sharing a hot beverage with creepy Richie, not after everything we’d done together, it was too depressing.” 

They both sat quietly, Mac put his card on top of the pile in front of them. “Did you know that the Empire State Building gets hit by lightning twenty three times a year?” he said. 

“I did not know that.” Riley replied and blinked at Mac, waiting for that piece of information to have a point. “You could probably make that happen to the Phoenix headquarters if you wanted couldn’t you?” 

“Oh easily!” Mac said with a scoff, “With some of the spare stuff that’s lying around in the janitor’s closet, I wouldn’t even have to take Sparky apart.” 

“Maybe don’t tell Matty that. She might not like the idea.” Matty may be a building half standing kind of a girl but she was a building one hundred percent not shorted out and burning one too. 

“Russ would probably love it.” 

“That’s true, he does march to the beat of his own drum. He’d probably want you to find a way to harness the power of the bolts to save on the electricity bill.” Riley joked. 

“I bet he’d come out with some line about how with great power comes great responsibility.” 

They both laughed and the movement jarred the bruises tumbling down a metal staircase had left on Riley’s back and arms and she flinched. 

“Are you okay?” Concerned, Mac sat up and leaned towards her. “Do you need some more painkillers?” 

“Maybe in a while. The ones I took earlier are working fine if I don’t move around too much.” 

“Okay.” Mac frowned, still worried. “What are you going to tell Aubrey about the bruises?” 

“I’m going to tell him that I tripped and fell down some stairs.” 

“Oh!” Mac looked surprised, then realised he had no reason to be surprised. “You’re going to tell him the truth? That actually works.” 

Riley gave an ironic eye roll. “Shocking isn’t it?” She paused, getting used to talking about Aubrey freely with Mac, she found she liked doing it. “Maybe you could come round to dinner some time to meet him.” 

“I’d like that.” 

“He’s a good cook.” 

“I’m a good eater so we should get on just fine.” Mac smirked then sobered, “My point with the Empire State building is that it’s a man-made object that attracts a lot of attention from storms. It’s sticking up into the sky and getting hit by lightning all the time because people put it there. We can make lightning in a bottle again if we want to, we just have to put the time and effort in. I mean, I want to.” 

“I want to too,” Riley said, “Absolutely. The Phoenix is back and we’re back too, we’ll make it work. Hopefully without getting electrocuted. That would be tricky to explain to Aubrey, I’m just saying.” 

“I’ve been electrocuted a couple of times in the lab and it’s not that bad.” Mac said. “It’s no picnic but there are worse things that can happen to you.” 

“I’m going to take your word for that.” Riley put her card down, “Snap!” she yelled when she saw her two of clubs covering Mac’s two of spades. 

“Were we playing Snap?” Mac asked. 

“We could have been.” Riley answered, “And if we were then I just won.” She grinned and started gathering up all of the cards on the table. 

“That’s not at all cheating.” 

“No it’s not, it’s improvising. It’s what we do.” 

“That it is.” Mac conceded with a nod. 

Riley held her cards up. “Do you want another game?” 

“Of Snap?” 

“Of whatever,” Riley dealt the cards out between her and Mac - one for me one for you - until the whole pack was split between them, “we could just start and see where we end up. Doing that usually works for us.” 

“Okay then.” Mac picked up his hand and looked expectantly at Riley. “You go first.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Roy Cleveland Sullivan is in the Guinness Book of Records as the person who has been struck by lightning the most recorded times, he was apparently struck seven times between 1942 and 1977.
> 
> It was Google that told me that the Empire State Building gets hit by lightning twenty three times a year and I have no reason to disbelieve it.


End file.
